How I did it: Come, Fall in Love

Introduction:
I am a self-taught photographer born in Chennai and a engineer by graduation. I always wanted to hold a DSLR though I never knew how to click a photograph. My love for photography actually began in my childhood when I bought a SLR look alike for 500 Rs (Rupees) and showed to everyone that it had a zoom ring and that I could shoot pictures. It was a great disappointment for me when I came to know that I couldn´t shoot anything with this camera. I never turned back to photography for the next 9 years. Photography got me again in late 2010. I bought my first Canon 500D camera and it was great, with my cam in hand I felt that I could express myself better than with any artistic medium that I have come across before. The concept of questioning the limitations of photography is both interesting and challenging of how far one can go with an image.

Inspired by photographers like Steve McCurry, Lee Jeffries, Ashok Saravanan, Rohit Sabu, my passion for photography grew way beyond what I thought. I look for strong emotions and try to tell a story in the best possible way I can. I feel lucky to be born in India.

My Mantra:“If you want to be a photographer, first leave home and your comfort zone”. -Steve McCurry

The creative process

Step1: I shot this image at Rameshwaram over the Pamban bridge. While shooting, the umbrella it luckily turned the other side.

Step2: The raw image was processed in Camera Raw. Since the shot was taken during sunset, I was able to bring the hues back into the image. I removed also the poles behind the subject since they were distracting.

Step3: I duplicated the image in Photoshop and added a path shaping the silhouette of the birds. After drawing the path, I reduced the opacity of the duplicated layer.

Step 4: I started to paint some birds to see the results. The important issue was to keep a proper ratio among the size of the birds, the size of the umbrella, the size of the man´s head and the real birds size (which are present in the original image if you watch carefully).

Step 5: I placed the birds using Photoshop brushes and made myself sure that the size of the birds was reduced as they moved from one side of the bridge to the other one. It takes time, but don’t give up!

Step6: the final state. I felt that the image lacked some punch of hues, therefore I added a texture and experimented a little bit with the blending mode. I also adjusted the color balance and… this was the final result.